


Five Times Jake Jensen Joked About Finding a Family...

by J (j_writes)



Category: The Losers (Comic)
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-30
Updated: 2011-07-30
Packaged: 2017-10-21 23:56:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/231310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_writes/pseuds/J
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>and one time he meant it</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Jake Jensen Joked About Finding a Family...

"Are you wearing pants?" Jensen heard instead of hello.

"Nope," he said brightly. "And I can provide a picture to prove it."

"I can think of few things in the world I'd like less," Clay said dryly. He fell quiet for a moment, so Jensen tucked the phone against his shoulder and returned to typing. "You're never going to sleep, are you?" Clay finally asked.

"That's not in the agenda, no," Jensen replied.

" _Jensen._ "

" _Clay_."

Clay huffed in his ear. "Do I have to send Cougar over there to tranq you through the window? Because I will do it."

"Cougar's in Dallas."

"Think he can't make the shot from there?"

Jensen smiled. "Point." The pushed up his glasses to scrub at his eyes. "Tell you what," he said. "Figure out a way to clone me so I can take this in shifts, and I'll take a break."

"Two of you?" Clay asked. "Congratulations, you've found something I want less than pictures of you naked."

Jensen shrugged. "Your loss, on both counts."

He could feel Clay's exasperation through the phone line. "A burned out hacker isn't going to do me any good, you know."

"Oh, I know," Jensen told him. "Find me an alternative." Clay sighed. "Yeah," Jensen said. "That's what I thought. When this job's done," he conceded, "I'll sleep for a week."

"You damn well better. I'll see to it that you do."

"What're you gonna do, ground me?"

"If I have to."

Jensen rolled his eyes. "Look, was there a point to this call? Because the sooner you let me off the phone, the sooner I'll be done."

"Just a status check," Clay said.

"Status: checked." Jensen wiggled his fingers in preparation to start typing again. "Now how about you kindly fuck off for a while?"

"Done," Clay said, and the phone clicked in his ear. No sooner had Jensen dropped it on the counter than it started buzzing with a text.

 _I hear I'm needed for a tranq job?_

Jensen laughed. _Not if you value that trigger finger of yours,_ he replied.

He set the phone aside and looked at the skull grinning at him from the pirate hat his computer was wearing. "Just you and me, buddy," he said. "When you start talking to me, _that's_ when I'll start worrying." He settled his fingers against the keys again, and got back to work.  
______________

"What is that?"

Jensen leaned back and showed off his food to Roque. "Dinner," he said. "Cougar got lucky in the woods."

"Oh, _did_ he?" said Pooch, leering. Cougar raised his eyebrows suggestively without looking up from the fire.

"Not that. _That,_ " Roque clarified, looking pointedly at Jensen's hand.

Jensen looked, then wiggled the knife at him. "Cutting implement. I'd think you of all people would recognize one of those."

"Oh, I do," Roque said. "Recognize it. Where exactly did you say you got it?"

"I didn't," Jensen replied. He waved the knife vaguely. "One of the packs."

" _Which_ pack?"

"...your pack?" Jensen attempted a winning smile.

"My knives," Roque said coldly, "are _not_ for cutting meat."

"That's exactly what they're for," Cougar remarked, then smiled innocently when Roque glared at him.

Roque took a menacing step towards Jensen, who held up the knive with apeace offering of meat stuck onto the end of it. Roque snatched the knife away, bit off the meat, and stuck the blade dangerously close to Jensen's throat..

"You want to get to know my weapons," he said, "I can arrange that. Intimately."

"Clay?" Jensen ventured with a sidelong glance. "A little help here?"

Clay considered. "Nah," he decided, and propped his feet up on a tree stump.

"If you ever go into my pack again - " Roque continued.

"Yeah, yeah," Jensen faked a yawn, narrowly avoiding the blade. "You'll cut me to pieces so small they'll never be able to put me back together. You gotta come up with some new threats, man."

"I was going to suggest roasting _you_ over the next fire."

"Mmmm. Hacker," Pooch said, taking a big bite of meat.

"You are a cruel man, Pooch," Jensen said. "You kiss your wife with that mouth?"

"And your mother," Pooch said brightly.

"Dad!" Jensen looked at him with mock adoration, and Clay snorted.

Pooch gave him a withering look. "Kid, your ass is adopted."

Roque was grumbling as he settled in across the fire to polish his knife. "And him?" Jensen asked, jerking a thumb in his direction.

"Bastard stepchild," Clay said regretfully in a stage whisper. "Don't tell him."

Roque held his knife up to catch the light of the fire, and ignored them all.  
______________

" _Blue jean baby -_ "

"Are you kidding me right now?"

" _LA lady -_ "

"Jesus, Clay, where did you _find_ this guy?"

"Same place as you, Pooch. Bargain basement."

" _Seamstress for the ba-and -_ "

"Can it, Jensen."

" _Something something -_ "

"I am warning you - "

"Is the rest of that line 'do not make me turn this car around'?"

"No, it was going to involve a few more sensitive body parts than that."

"...ouch."

"Yeah."

*silence*

"You know, that could have been a beautiful moment, you guys."

*more silence*  
______________

"You awake?" Jensen whispered into the darkness.

There was a pause long enough that he guessed the answer, then "No."

He breathed out a laugh. "Right. I believe you."

"These are my sleeping noises," Cougar told him. His voice was worn and tired.

"Mhmm," Jensen agreed. He stretched, his fingers coming into contact with the soft fabric of Cougar's hat, and Cougar twitched away, batting at Jensen's hand. Jensen rolled up to prop himself on an elbow. "Are you wearing your hat on your face?"

"No," Cougar said from the depths of the hat.

"You know, for being special forces, you make a terrible liar."

"And you're shit at stealth." Jensen could hear the shift of fabric as Cougar shrugged. "We all have our weaknesses, no?"

"Don't tell Clay that."

"Some more than others," Cougar said dryly.

Jensen scooted closer and reached to lift the hat so it was hovering over Cougar's face. Cougar gave him a withering look. "No," he said.

"No what?" Jensen asked. "You don't even know what I was going to say."

"No, I don't want to _talk_ about anything." He managed to make it sound like the dirtiest of words. He reached up for his hat and yanked it back down over his face.

Jensen frowned, offended. "I was going to ask if I should tell you a bedtime story or something," he said.

Cougar's laugh was unexpected, and made him grin. "I'm sorry, _what_?" He reached up to tilt his hat off his face and give Jensen an incredulous look.

"You know, like - "Jensen waved a hand. "Once upon a time, there was a stunningly attractive hacker named Jensen..."

"...who never learned how to recognize a good time not to say anything?" Cougar finished.

"Something like that, yeah. Maybe with a few more damsels in distress."

"Who the remarkably attractive hacker - "

"Stunningly attractive."

"Stunningly, right. Who he would save from peril and then ride off with on his white horse?"

"Or in his helicopter, yeah."

"You'd need Pooch to fly the helicopter for you," Cougar reminded him.

Jensen shrugged. "Every hero needs a sidekick, I guess."

"And Clay to plan the mission."

"And a wise old mentor." Jensen considered. "Or just an old mentor, really."

"And maybe a couple of guys with weapons to watch your back."

"You don't think I can watch my own back?"

"While you're distracted with a damsel?" Cougar's smile was thin, but there. "Unlikely."

"Sounds like a mission, then," Jensen agreed. He lay back down, close enough now that he could feel Cougar warm along his side. "Not much of a bedtime story, I guess."

"I don't know," Cougar said, "if I was a guy looking for a bedtime story - "

"Which you're not."

"Which I'm not. But if I was, that might be a nice one." When Jensen peeked over, he saw that Cougar's eyes were closed, his mouth still twisted up in a little smile. He didn't even object when Jensen reached to grab his hat and put it over his own face. It was dark in there, and quiet, and he was about to make some sort of comment about how it was a nice place to sleep, when he recognized the sound of Cougar's breathing evening out beside him.  
______________

They found another bar along the beach, another porch, another set of drinks, and Jensen listened to Pooch's stories, told a few of his own, watched the girls pass in their bikinis with something that might have one day been lust, but was closer to vague interest now. They talked around a lot of topics, and they drank.

"You know," Pooch said finally, and Jensen steeled himself, wrapping his fingers around his cool glass and watching the sky turn colors over the water. "We've got plenty of room, at ours, if you need - " he trailed off.

"I don't need anything," Jensen said shortly. He winced, and looked up at Pooch, who was carefully studying the grain of the wood in the table. "But thanks," he added.

Pooch shrugged like it meant nothing. "Jolene would be - I mean, you know." He waved a hand. "Brothers in arms, and all that?" Jensen snorted, and they shared a humorless kind of smile. "I'm just saying." Pooch looked at him, then looked away.

"That the word for it?" Jensen asked, more curious than challenging. "Brothers? Family?"

"Maybe, sometimes, yeah," Pooch said. "Not always good, but always there."

Jensen smiled. "Always, yeah." He couldn't tell if the bitterness made it into his words, but the way Pooch grimaced told him it probably had. "The thing about this family, though," he said, "is that none of us ever did learn when to just walk away."

"Most don't," Pooch agreed. He took a long sip of his drink, and together, they watched the sun go down.


End file.
